Location: In Rio de Janeiro, where it was cyberpunk before it was cool.

Re: The First Interbellum (1918-1939)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Don't be so sure about that. After all, where is the Amazon basin?

Well our government did pick up on competence recently, who knows =)

I discovered a few years ago that there is an actual company whose name I cant remember for anything (funny eh) that claimed they were sort of mediums/wizards that could do stuff like predict disasters and contain bad weather, and those guys were on government payroll lol (might still be for all I know)

Definitely interesting to think about

Also, Brazil is like the mecca of people having like 2-3 religions at the same time, very common to see people who believe in all sort of spiritulistic and karmic philosophy and being catholics or evangelicals, or belivers of candomble.

The ammount of people who claim they are casting something or channeling some sort of power in day to day is amazing (and not just your standard church power), feels like I live in a magical land sometimes, specially when people wanna gut animals for rituals (dont really take part in those religions but respect it)

Let us join those members of the Aces assigned to the Chicago operation, several
hours after the sudden epiphany struck their commanding officer.
The sun had risen, not that anyone could tell through the storm clouds.
The first thick drops of rain had begun to fall just as the first rays of
dawn would have touched the tops of the highest towers of the city,
though the clouds hid any sight of that light from the ground. By the
time the Aces had gathered and events had been put into motion, loud
blasts of thunder were shaking the building, and a howling wind was
blowing through the canyons and streets of the Windy City. Up and
down the lake front, high waves were crashing against the shore.

The storm howling outside matched the mood in the basement of the
Breymont Museum, where several men stood looking in a mixture of
anger and disbelief at the hole in the ceiling of the basement, and thus
in the floor of the Main Hall itself.

“I still don’t believe this,” the curator said, shaking his head. “I have
been the curator here for over seven years, and I never knew this room
existed. Of course, I rarely had occasion to come down here, but-”

“But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” the chief of the Chicago
police detail said. “It doesn’t look as if anybody’s been in here for
years, and that door was bricked up!”

“But there were other doors,” Conners said, ‘in character’. “This is
an old coal storage room, from before the Museum was a Museum.
They were prepared for this before the exhibition even opened, they
cut a trap door into the floor of the Main Hall, and they had this old
coal room available below. So when the lights went out, which we
can now be certain was arranged somehow, they opened their door
and lowered the exhibit they wanted, and put their fake one up in
its place. Shut the trap door, and when the lights come on, it looks
like the exhibit is still in place.”

“I still can’t believe how damned perfect that fake display is,”
one of the Bureau men said. “It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever
seen!

“What I want to know is how they could do this and none of ushear anything?!” one of the police officers said.

This question was bandied back and forth among the personnel of the
security detail and the Museum personnel, with no obvious answer.
About an hour later, the Aces were gathered without the others, in a
room they had carefully searched and secured for privacy, and there
Conners explained how he had realized what had happened.

“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Conners said. “They
faked up the jewels, but they also made a fake display case, a fake
pedestal, the satin material the gemstones rested on had wrinkles in
the exact same places, they made sure there were matching damnedscuff marks on the case! They must have observed the target
every day to make sure they could produce a visually perfect fake.

“They even put a layer of damned dust on top of the fake display
case, to match the others. But that’s what gave it away. When I saw it
in that extra-bright light, the dust on top of the fake display looked...
well, it looked different. It’s a different material, not real dust but some
kind of powder they used. In ordinary light it looks just like dust, but
in that bright light it was too...I don’t know, too light colored or too
uniform or something. I can’t say just what it was but it looked unlike
the dust on the other cases in that bright light.

“That caught my attention,” Conners went on, “and when I was looking
down at that trying to figure out why it looked that way, I saw that the
case was sitting out of position, just barely. I could see that it was not
lined up with the other cases on either side, but I knew that that
case had been perfectly lined up before, I inspected everything in that
Hall several times. Supposedly nobody had been allowed to touch the
cases at any time for any reason, but I could see that it had been moved.

“That was when it suddenly hit me, it all seemed to come together in a
flash. Howard, you can take comfort in the knowledge that your device
worked perfectly, it picked up the use of psychic powers. I remembered
back when they were first training us, in our introductory sessions when
they were explaining about some of the weird stuff we’d be needing to
know, the stuff the Brits in SG-7 deal with, they mentioned that you
could use those mental powers to muffle sounds.

“It hit me that if somebody had those powers, he could use them to cut
off the sound while they were making the switch. I can’t be sure,
but I’d be willing to bet my boat that that is what your machine picked
up, Howie.”

“Which explains why the machines picked up vibrations,” Brody said
slowly, as he caught up his chief’s chain of thought. “They blocked the
sound...but Howie’s vibration detector picked it up through the floor of
the building!”

“That’s how I read it,” Conners said with a nod.

“It’s still amazing,” McNee said. “They had to have their timing down
to perfect, and that fake case is a sheer work of art. This was carefully
planned and they carried the plan off smooth as silk.”

“Just how big a deal were those gems, Chief?” Lake asked.

Conners grimaced. “Well, I’ve been on the phone with Bob McLaird,
and I think he just about had a stroke when he heard what happened.
I’m told the State Department is already hip deep in trying to calm the
waters, but the details are above my pay grade.”

“Those gemstones were the royal crown jewels of a formerly sovereign
principality,” Brody said. “It’s a province in a bigger country now, but
their government still considers those gems to be a national treasure,
and having them stolen while on loan to the good old USA is going to
be a major embarrassment. They’re priceless and irreplaceable.”

“They’re not going to need to be replaced,” Conners said firmly, “since
we’re going to get them back. I don’t know how yet, but we will."

Even as Conners was rallying his personnnel to begin his countermove, and at the
same time trying to figure out what that countermove would be, another man was
contemplating the very jewels that had been removed from the Museum.

Location: In Rio de Janeiro, where it was cyberpunk before it was cool.

Re: The First Interbellum (1918-1939)

I think Johnny1A has enough competence to write it if he wants to, my question in this subject is if someone wrote it, and one day I want to write a book about my own world in the OU, how would that work ? Royalties ?

It isn't that easy for a new author to get published, but the rise of Kindle and the like are slowly changing that. Webcomics of course are webcomics - all you really need is a decent artist and the willingness to actually sit down and *write* your episodes. Getting to where you make money at either... that's another, ummm, story.

I meant no insult to Johnny's skills as a writer. The sections of live action alone prove he has enough talent to make it work. I am just so used to seeing game settings like Warhammer 40k being covered by dozens of different authors, some of them quite recognizable in their own right, that I automatically saw this one done the same way. If Johnny wants to actually write it all into novels himself, I say go for it!

While Nathaniel Conners was rallying his men and organizing his effort to recover
the stolen gemstones, those very stones were being observed, with considerable
appreciation, by a man with whom we are by now familiar. Let us join him and his
small circle of confederates for a moment.
"Truly lovely, aren't they?" Jurgensen said with a soft smile. "Given when
they were cut, or set, they are actually quite exquisite, even if they are not
quite what their original owners thought they were."

The gems remained in the display case, the entire structure still exactly as
it had been when he and his men had so carefully removed it from the Main
Hall of the Breymont, right past the collectively ignorant eyes and ears of
the security detail that had so carefully watched for any threat. Even in the
dim light of their current setting, some of the faceted stones seem to sparkle.

"What do you mean, sir?" one of his chief deputies made so bold as to ask.
It was not often that they saw their leader in quite so apparently mellow a
mood. Such apparently relaxed moods could be dangerous...but at times
a question put to their chief in such a mood could result in interesting and
even useful information, as well.

“The original owners of these gems,” Jurgensen explained, “thought that
they were a collection of rubies and emeralds, and had them set into that
crown and orb and ring and sceptre. They gathered the gems over several
decades, and some of them actually are emeralds and rubies.

“But some are not, as well,” Jurgensen continued. “At the time many of
these gems were assembled, it was a fairly common practice to refer to
any red-colored stone as a ruby, the name was applied to a number of
different gems. Several of those ‘rubies’ are actually spinels. In today’s
world a spinel is far less treasured than a ruby, but in their day few knew
the difference.

“Likewise, a few of those so-emeralds are actually green-colored stones of
other sorts, such as that one,” Jurgensen continued, pointing at one of the
gems set into a gold ring. “It is actually an unusually dark peridot. It is a
lovely piece, however, don’t you think?”

The other man nodded, he was not a gem aficionado, but the jewel and its
setting did have a certain sparkling appeal.

“The jewel smiths who shaped these items were highly skilled, and very
well paid,” Jurgensen went on. “Genuine artists at their work. But even so,
I must admit that these gems would bring only modest sums on the modern
market, if not for their...ah...shall we say sentimental value to a certain
government? Their history and ownership makes them far more valuable
than would otherwise be the case.”

“Too valuable, I wouldn’t wonder,” another man commented. “If we were
actually planning to fence them, could we even do it? Or would they be too
hot to handle?”

“Oh, they could be sold,” Jurgensen said tolerantly. His appreciation of
the beauty of the gems had made him far more outgoing than was
normally the case. “There are collectors, buyers, to whom I could sell
these items and who would pay us quite well for them. We would of
course have to be very discreet, but it could certainly be done. If, of
course, that was why we had taken the liberty of obtaining these.”

“How long do you think it will take before they finally realize that we
have these?” the first man said.

“Hopefully, some days yet,” Jurgensen said. “We went to a great deal
of trouble to prepare the duplicate display. Considering our special
advantages, I do not consider it terribly likely that the switch will be
detected before we are ready for the next move.”

Though Jurgensen was of course wrong about this assessment, he had solid reason
for believing it. He had no idea that the Seven Aces had become involved, and
indeed little idea of who or what they were. Further, he had no idea that they knew
even as much as they did, or that they had a way to detect psychic energies.

Still, it was a fact that the situation was beginning to go awry in ways that would
have disturbed Jurgensen had he but known. Nor were his problems limited to the
presence and involved of the Seven Aces. What else was in the process of going
wrong with the intricate plans of the Marquis? We shall see.

Now let us consider the scene in the library from a little earlier. The explanation
for what happened was both simple and complex. Simple in that the immediate
motivations of the men were straightforward enough, complex in that a vast chain
of events lay behind and beneath the events in the library.

Recall the Rhaemyi, if you will. The secret society founded in the last centuries
of the Antediluvian Age, dedicated to the defeat of the Unity and the prevention
of the disaster that an ‘escapee’ of the initial collective could foresee. Recall if
you will that as time passed, this society changed, and eventually joined forces
with Zadatharion and Aradel in the final years of the Antediluvian World. As it
happened, the Rhaemyi failed, in a sense, in the original mission given by their
founder, but in their failure lay what might be called a success from the point of
view of later ages. Not a ‘moral victory’, which is often simply a way of trying
to paint a pleasant face on a defeat, but rather a partial success, in that they were
instrumental in preventing the Unity from successfully ‘connecting’ itself to the
power of the Matrix/Flux at such an intimate level that it would have been all but
all-powerful on a mortal scale afterward. They also played a similar role in the
prevention of that same power falling into the hands of an undead monstrosity, a
monster in its own way as dangerous and malevolent as the Unity itself.

This dual ‘victory’ was, of course, purchased at the cost of over a billion deaths,
and the apocalyptic destruction of the world-wide civilization of the former age.

This victory was also partial in that the Unity, by a bare margin and with the aid
of one of the trapped Eldren, managed to escape the Downfall and in time come
to consciousness again in our own world. The menace had been nearly defeated,
and reduced to only a shadow of a possibility for thousands of years, but it did
survive to threaten the world and its people once more.

As it happens, however, the Rhaemyi itself also survived...in a sense.

As an organization, the Rhaemyi were nearly destroyed in the catastrophic ending
of the Antediluvian Age, but a few members did survive, and a few of their hidden
enclaves and villages endured the chaos, especially in the depths of the vast Asian
land mass. Several small villages in deep valleys in depths of Asia endured, with
enough people to endure. They retained some of their former knowledge, much of
it orally but also much of it inscribed in hidden libraries and caches.

In time, the Rhaemyi regained contact with Zadatharion, who had also survived the
Downfall, and over the following ages the organization became something of his
personal assistants, while evolving very gradually and steadily into something
that was a strange hybrid of a secret society and a people, a tribe. New blood and
new members were added in each generation, usually by intermarriage, and this
was a marriage both into a people and into a way of life. Such intermarriages were
carefully considered, because one of the legacies of the Antediluvian time was the
psionic heritage of their Atlantean ancestry, which they worked always to preserve.

This was a delicate matter, because too much inbreeding within the tribal society
would be just as destructive on many levels as too much outbreeding would be to
their psychic heritage. Also, because the Rhaemyi were both at tribe and at the
same time a way of life, a dedication to a complex cause, candidates for marriage
had to be very carefully vetted and considered before a marriage was allowed.

The cause to which the Rhaemyi dedicated themselves over time came to be both a
very general one, yet one that required many and often conflicting specific things.
The Rhaemyi came to see themselves as being the hereditary guardians, the hidden
protectors, of the human race. This simple-sounding idea carried with it so many
complex implications and subtle ramifications that the Rhaemyi became a tribe of
philosopher-warriors, and indeed in time came to take pride in this. This was even
more true because they never did entirely forget their origins as a band of outcasts
and criminals in the steppes of Asia in a previous age of the world. [1]

The psychic heritage of the Rhaemyi was not as strong as it had been in the ancient
Atlantean ancestors, but they did retain enough of it that almost all the members of
the tribe had at least some psychic power, and they certainly retained a wide and
very useful variety of skills. They had even managed to develop a few new skills
along the way, with specialized applications for their specialized needs.

The relationship between Zadatharion and the Rhaemyi stabilized in an alliance, a
recognition of many goals in common. Neither considered themselves to be under
the authority of the other per se, but favors asked by one would usually be
granted by the other, and ‘field agents’ of the Rhaemyi would usually acknowledge
the authority of Zadatharion if they came into contact with him and their activities
overlapped in some way.

When the Unity awakened, the Rhaemyi found themselves facing the same enemy
that their tribe had been established to oppose, so many millennia in the past. Now
that enemy had returned, to find the Rhaemyi, in a sense, still waiting for it.